Arabic, a ‘language of France’

Just 6,000 French secondary school pupils study Arabic at school, with the majority of Arabic language instruction taking place in religious institutions. Yet France was the first western European country to have a chair of Arabic, as long ago as 1530

by Emmanuelle Talon

“If you allow Arabic classes in state schools to be taught by veiled women, you encourage populism,” said Bruno Le Maire (the minister in charge of drawing up the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) party’s programme for 2012) told the audience at a debate on populism in early 2011. Nobody (...)